I feel like there should be a mark in the air where he was wiped away. But there is no trace.
-- Chapter 1

“I was there,” Dreska snaps, and I wince for the recipient. The stones
of the house seem to grind together. “You were not, Tomas. You were not
even a thought in your parents’ minds, and your parents were not
thoughts, and their parents were not thoughts. But I was there …”
-- Chapter 11

I fleetingly considered teasing two sentences from the dissertation handbook that is my best friend at the moment, but I really didn’t want to scar any of you permanently with that ... unless you are interested in such a thing? (It’s a really helpful book but I wouldn’t recommend it as leisure reading.) So The Near Witch is a book I had on my list for quite a while and never really got around to reading it. That is until I picked it up and only set it down to eat and then when it was finished. I would describe it as a quiet book in the sense that it has a very soft style that I can imagine isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I really admired the clandestine way of building up tension until you are suddenly racing along the words to see how everything plays out. If you want, you can have a look at the companion short story, The Ash-Born Boy, by clicking here, which I can highly recommend.

Also: We have been tagged for a Liebster Award (twice!) and Diana and I will have to talk about how we want to respond to such a thing in the future. We will, I think, respond to these two, but maybe not others ... in the meantime I am finishing aforementioned dissertation and Diana is busy as well so please bear with us for the moment. And let us know what you are reading.